The recent secular trend in grip strength among older adults: findings from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing

R M Dodds,Avan A Sayer,K Davies,A Granic,E Pakpahan

doi:10.1007/s41999-019-00174-4

Abstract

Key summary pointsAimOur aim was to investigate whether there has been a recent secular trend in the grip strength of older English adults, using data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA).FindingsWe found evidence of a slight decline in mean grip strength between 2004 and 2013. This decline is equivalent to 65-year-olds’ mean strength declining to that previously seen in individuals at age 69, and did not appear to be explained by differences in lifestyle risk factors.MessageThese findings are important since they raise the possibility that more recent cohorts of older people remain at similar, or possibly slightly greater, risk of the adverse consequences of weak muscle strength.

Highlights

Weaker grip strength is associated with disability [1, 2], morbidity [3] and mortality [4] and is a key component of the ageing syndrome of sarcopenia in the revised European consensus on definition and diagnosis [5]
We considered a priori factors with the potential to confound a secular trend in grip strength
We investigated the secular trend in grip strength between 2004 and 2013 in those participants aged 50–89 using data from English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), an English ageing cohort study

Summary

Introduction

Weaker grip strength is associated with disability [1, 2], morbidity [3] and mortality [4] and is a key component of the ageing syndrome of sarcopenia in the revised European consensus on definition and diagnosis [5]. There is recent evidence of a decline in self-reported physical functioning among older Germans between 2006 and 2012; this was in contrast to an improvement in cognitive functioning over the same period [8]. The grip strength of older people in Germany has shown a slight decline over a similar period, as has that in the Netherlands and Belgium [9]. This is contrast to an apparent secular increase in grip strength in Denmark, Sweden, Italy and Spain seen in the same study [9]

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